SWINDON has always been an overrated town. The old system was most unfair.

Poll tax was wrong because councils were allowed to determine the price. In towns where one side of the road was under one council and paid a fraction of what people on the opposite side paid, instead of blaming squandering Labour councils people blamed poor Margaret Thatcher.

The banding system is the scurrilous old system reintroduced under a different name.

A sensible tax would be £2 per person per week over the age of 18 stopped at source throughout the UK. Pensions and unemployed giros should be increased by that amount, then there would be no 2nd class citizens and above all no humiliating means test.

It would abolish the waste of billions of tons of paper every year and thousands squandered on postage, stationery and clerical time, particularly when they send out what they call bog letters, when they are queried people are told to ignore them.

(Miss) B M PACKER

Croft Road, Swindon